


Higher Ground

by nahco3



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-29
Updated: 2011-08-29
Packaged: 2017-10-23 05:45:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/246880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nahco3/pseuds/nahco3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Fernando,” Sergio says, when he answers his door, “what a surprise!” He leans against the door frame, his arms folded across his chest. He looks the same, maybe a few more smile lines around his eyes. He does look surprised, but not unpleasantly so.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Higher Ground

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted to my lj.

“Fernando,” Sergio says, when he answers his door, “what a surprise!” He leans against the door frame, his arms folded across his chest. He looks the same, maybe a few more smile lines around his eyes. He does look surprised, but not unpleasantly so.

“Can I come in?” Fernando asks, probably stupidly. Sergio raises an eyebrow in response, maybe waiting for an explanation, and stays in place. Fernando shifts his weight from foot to foot, trying to relieve the pain in his knee. He flexes his right quad experimentally, then winces.

“Please?” Fernando hazards, because it’s late and the traffic was bad; because drive here took too long, Fernando’s bad knee aching the whole trip over since it doesn’t like being folded into a car; because Fernando doesn’t want to get back in his car and drive back to his modern and silent apartment. He almost expects to hear Sergio laugh, step aside, hug him, welcome him in. He has memories of Sergio, vibrant and loud and permissive, memories that are thin and worn out like the books from his childhood that he’s read and reread, looking for some old comfort there.

Sergio stays still for a long time, not quite meeting Fernando's eyes. “I have a game tomorrow,” he says, half an explanation.

“I know,” Fernando tells him. “I wanted to wish you luck.” And he does, too. It’s part of why he came.

Sergio shrugs. “You could have called.”

“I don’t have your number.”

“It hasn’t changed,” Sergio says, as if Fernando was supposed to have memorized Sergio’s phone number. He never needed to, Sergio programmed it into his phone himself, practically the first time they met. Fernando never had it saved on a post-it note or the back of receipt, never hid it in his wallet or the back of his closet in a shoebox.

“I lost my phone. Last year,” Fernando says. “So.” So I never had a chance to get your number again, he doesn’t say. Fernando reaches down and and rubs his knee, nearly unconsciously.

“I should have called you,” Sergio says, in a rush, “but I thought you didn’t want. I wasn’t sure. So I didn’t, I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok,” Fernando says. It was ok then because he had surgeries and injections and physical therapy and no time to think. Now, Fernando isn’t so sure. Now, Fernando is standing on Sergio’s doorstep, waiting for the sunset and for Sergio to let him in.

“Come in,” Sergio says, finally, his eyes darting down and back up again. Fernando’s pretty sure Sergio feels guilty. He’s also pretty sure he doesn’t care.

Fernando sits down in Sergio’s messy living room, stretching his right leg out in front of him. Sergio sits down next to him on the couch. Fernando shifts a little. Their forearms brush and then Sergio leans away, maybe unintentionally. Fernando suddenly feels touch-starved. It’s been months since anyone but his doctors have deliberately touched him, and their hands are sterile and impersonal. He wants to lean in towards Sergio but can’t, won’t.

“Does it hurt?” Sergio asks, not unkindly. He doesn’t look uncomfortable around Fernando. Most footballers do. It’s the reason Fernando has stopped spending time with the people he used to play football with. They act like injury and failure are contagious.

Fernando shrugs. “Sometimes,” he says, which is footballer-speak for “like fucking hell.” Sergio makes a sympathetic noise.

“I was watching the game,” Sergio says. He’s looking directly at Fernando now. “I got up to go the bathroom and I didn’t see it. The challenge. I came back and you were.” He stops. Fernando wants him to keep going. He doesn’t remember much after the challenge, not being put on the stretcher, or being given oxygen, or being taken to the hospital. Not even the pain, after the first tear of it. He was probably in shock.

He watched it on youtube once, just after he got out of the hospital. He thought it would help him remember, but the camera pulled away to show Terry screaming for the red card. When it panned back, he was lying on the pitch, a hand over his eyes, and Fernando quickly closed the window, feeling sick.

“Don’t apologize,” Fernando says, “it’s not your fault.”

Sergio shrugs. “I just kept thinking that if I had been watching it wouldn’t have happened. I know it’s stupid.”

“No, that’s not stupid. I do the same thing now,” Fernando says, before he can stop himself.

“For who?” Sergio asks, genuinely curious.

“Anyone. Everyone.” You, Fernando doesn’t say. He’s bad at talking about this, about anything. No one talks to him about it because people assume he doesn’t want to be reminded. As if he needs to be reminded of what he lost. As if talking is what would hurt.

“I mean, I don’t want anyone to, to have this happen to them. So when I watch a game, it doesn’t even matter who’s playing, the whole time I’m just thinking don’t get injured, don’t get injured, pull back from that tackle, you know?” Fernando continues in rush. “ESPN asked me if I wanted to do some commentary, I guess, for some random friendly. But I would’ve spend the entire time just freaking out.” He laughs at himself, and it comes out shakier than he thought it would.

“Hey, man, it’s ok,” Sergio says, putting a hand over his shoulder. “Just breathe.”

Fernando does. Sergio smells like deodorant and some ridiculous fruity thing that is probably his shampoo/conditioner/random hair product beyond even Fernando’s understanding.

“Why’d you come by, anyway?” Sergio asks, after a second of silence. “Not that it hasn’t been way too long. But what made today the ideal day to come freak out on my couch?”

“I wanted to wish you luck for your game,” Fernando says. “I told you that.”

“Not that I don’t appreciate the sentiment, but we’re playing Shakhtar Donetsk at home, and we scored approximately 45 points last time we played them. So you probably didn’t need to go to all this trouble.”

“Really, 45 points? You realize that’s a goal every two minutes, don’t you?”

“Fuck you Torres, I can divide. Plus, need I remind you, I was there, so I know how many goals we scored. Which was 45.”

Fernando reaches between them and pulls out his phone. It’s kind of awkward, because Sergio’s arm is still draped over his shoulder, but Fernando doesn’t care.

“What are you doing?”

“Googling ‘Real Madrid Shakhtar Donetsk score.’ It says here the score was 0 - 2. Do you need to get your head checked out? I know a good doctor.”

Sergio cuffs the back of his head. “Whatever. I notice you’ve managed to completely deflect my question.”

Damn it. “What question?”

Sergio laughs. “Why are you here?”

“I’m going to America,” Fernando says. Sergio looks like he’s about to start talking, so Fernando keeps talking, because if Sergio cuts him off, he’s not going to be able to finish this. He concentrates on Sergio’s arm behind him and the pain in his knee, and tries to ignore the tightness in his chest. “There’s a surgeon there and Chelsea thinks. They think she might be able to fix my knee.”

“Shit,” Sergio says, quietly. “That’s good, right?”

Fernando runs his lip over his toungue. “I don’t know. Maybe. I just.”

“You’re scared,” Sergio says quietly. Fernando’s shoulders tighten, he hunkers into himself. “That’s ok, to be scared. I would be,” Sergio continues.

“It’s just there have been a lot of doctors they thought could help,” Fernando says. “And I’m fucking sick of it. I thought they had finally given up on me.”

“No one’s going to give up on you, Fernando,” Sergio tells him, “not even your incredibly good-looking friends who you ignore for months at a time.”

“I didn’t think you’d want to see me,” Fernando says, more honest than he means to be, but Sergio has that effect on him.

“I always want to see you,” Sergio tells him, absolutely sincere. It sounds to Fernando like maybe he’s saying something else, too.

Five years ago, Fernando would never have let Sergio say that. Five years ago they never would have had this conversation in the first place because Fernando was afraid of showing emotion, of what people would think, of failure. Two years ago, Fernando would have laughed at that, and not nicely, because his career was slipping away from him and Sergio wasn’t willing to understand the pressure he was under. Two years ago, he was kind of a dick. But this is now, and they haven’t talked in a year, and Fernando doesn’t have a career anymore, just regrets.

He kisses Sergio. Sergio kisses him back. Sergio hands are warm points of pressure on his back. His hair is still soft under Fernando’s fingers and he is still gentle. Sergio pulls back for a moment. His lips are very pink.

“You,” Sergio says. “What you do to me.” He laughs. Fernando laughs, too, because what else is there to do? He was always powerless against this, powerless against the scything tackle, powerless to prevent anything. He kisses Sergio again because tomorrow Sergio will go out and play football, and Fernando will stay here in Sergio’s house, warm in Sergio’s bed, and watch the match, afraid every minute. He kisses Sergio because in a week he’ll be in another strange hospital. He kisses Sergio because that is all he can do.


End file.
